On the 25th May 2018 a new law will come in called the GDPR. This law applies to everyone in the European Union (EU) but applies to any EU resident whose data is used, shared, accessed outside of the EU and it is all about you and protecting your personal data.

As a result of this we have had to change our Privacy Policy & T&C's to comply with the GDPR.

Your information is collected via two ways. Firstly, by browsing “www.codenstuff.com” will cause the software to create a number of cookies, which are small text files that are downloaded on to your computer’s web browser temporary files. The first two cookies just contain a user identifier (hereinafter “user-id”) and an anonymous session identifier (hereinafter “session-id”), automatically assigned to you by our software. A third cookie will be created once you have browsed topics within “www.codenstuff.com” and is used to store which topics have been read, thereby improving your user experience.

We may also create cookies external to our software whilst browsing “www.codenstuff.com”, though these are outside the scope of this document which is intended to only cover the pages created by our software. The second way in which we collect your information is by what you submit to us. This can be, and is not limited to: posting as an anonymous user (hereinafter “anonymous posts”), registering on “www.codenstuff.com” (hereinafter “your account”) and posts submitted by you after registration and whilst logged in (hereinafter “your posts”).

Your account will at a bare minimum contain a uniquely identifiable name (hereinafter “your user name”), a personal password used for logging into your account (hereinafter “your password”) and a personal, valid email address (hereinafter “your email”). Your information for your account at “www.codenstuff.com” is protected by data-protection laws applicable in the country that hosts us. Any information beyond your user name, your password, and your email address required by “www.codenstuff.com” during the registration process is either mandatory or optional, at the discretion of “www.codenstuff.com”. In all cases, you have the option of what information in your account is publicly displayed. Furthermore, within your account, you have the option to opt-in or opt-out of automatically generated emails from our software.

Your password is ciphered (a one-way hash) so that it is secure. However, it is recommended that you do not reuse the same password across a number of different websites. Your password is the means of accessing your account at “www.codenstuff.com”, so please guard it carefully and under no circumstance will anyone affiliated with “www.codenstuff.com” or another 3rd party, legitimately ask you for your password. Should you forget your password for your account, you can use the “I forgot my password” feature provided by our software. This process will ask you to submit your user name and your email, then our software will generate a new password to reclaim your account.

By accessing “www.codenstuff.com” (hereinafter “we”, “us”, “our”, “www.codenstuff.com”, “https://www.codenstuff.com/forum”), you agree to be legally bound by the following terms. If you do not agree to be legally bound by all of the following terms then please do not access and/or use “www.codenstuff.com”. We may change these at any time and we’ll do our utmost in informing you, though it would be prudent to review this regularly yourself as your continued usage of “www.codenstuff.com” after changes mean you agree to be legally bound by these terms as they are updated and/or amended.

Our forums are powered by phpBB (hereinafter “they”, “them”, “their”, “phpBB software”, “www.phpbb.com”, “phpBB Limited”, “phpBB Teams”) which is a bulletin board solution released under the “GNU General Public License v2” (hereinafter “GPL”) and can be downloaded from www.phpbb.com. The phpBB software only facilitates internet based discussions; phpBB Limited is not responsible for what we allow and/or disallow as permissible content and/or conduct. For further information about phpBB, please see: https://www.phpbb.com/.

You agree not to post any abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws be it of your country, the country where “www.codenstuff.com” is hosted or International Law. Doing so may lead to you being immediately and permanently banned, with notification of your Internet Service Provider if deemed required by us. The IP address of all posts are recorded to aid in enforcing these conditions. You agree that “www.codenstuff.com” have the right to remove, edit, move or close any topic at any time should we see fit. As a user you agree to any information you have entered to being stored in a database. While this information will not be disclosed to any third party without your consent, neither “www.codenstuff.com” nor phpBB shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

For clarification purposes we use the terms ‘you’ and ‘your’ as being the person, member, user, individual, human being, Earthling reading the following information and all the following applies to you.
How your data is used
Your data (E-mail address, IP address(s), username) is used in combination with a ‘cookie’ to store data submitted to the site such as – but not limited to; posts, topics, chat, private messages, social updates, newsletters and contest entries. We identify these submissions as ‘content’. A ‘cookie’ is required in order to use the site for the purposes of logging in, keeping you logged in and submitting content to the site. Without the use of a ‘cookie’ the sites content is read-only. Your E-mail address is used for the purposes of registration verification, e-mail notifications and newsletters. Your e-mail address is entered by you at the point of registration and stored in our secure database in order to identify who you are when logging in and for the purposes mentioned above.

Your Username is used to identify who you are when logging in to the site through the use of a ‘cookie’ along with a unique encrypted password chosen by you at the point of registration. This is used to identify and indicate to other users that you are the individual who submitted content to the site.

Your IP Address(s) are also used to identify who you are when logging in to the site through the use of a ‘cookie’ and again to identify and indicate to other users that you are the individual who submitted content to the site. Your IP Address(s) and Username are stored in our database at the point of content submission so we can identify that it is you who made the content submission, this includes, but is not limited to; private messages between you and other members, posts, topics and contests. Your E-mail Address is also used to send you site activity notifications such as, but is not limited to; topic and post updates, receiving private messages, username and/or password recovery, newsletters, all of which are activated or deactivated via the use of your personal user control panel and you can opt-in or out of these notifications at any time.

Who has access to your data?
Your personal information including, but not limited to; E-mail address, IP Address(s) are stored securely in our database is accessible only by the site owner and administrators of our site. You have the ability to view and change your E-mail Address and Username from your personal user control panel.

Your IP Address(s) and Username are also visible to our site moderators who may be required to change, alter, amend, append, remove or delete your content submissions should they violate our site terms and conditions. Should you be found to be violating our site terms and conditions your IP Address(s) may be visible should the site owner, administrators or moderators feel that you should be banned or warned for the violation. Other members of the site, including but not limited to; guests, bots will see your Username displayed in any and/or all content submissions made by you.

You will NOT include any personal, private or confidential information in your content submissions that could be used to identify who you are. Any content submissions identified by the administrator or moderators will be removed from your content submissions. However, just to be clear, you are responsible for your own content submissions and any personal, private, confidential information contained within those submissions are your responsibility and you make those submissions of your own free will with the full understanding that the information contained within your submission is visible to any person(s) who visit, view, read the site content.

You will be given access to a complete and full record of all your personal data that we store on you which includes, but is not limited to; email, username, IP address, date of birth, topics, posts and attachment records. You can access this via the use of your user control panel and is accessible, view-able, downloadable once every 24-hour period from the previous access time and date.

Consent to use your data
By registering an account, creating an account, you are agreeing to the sites terms and conditions as they currently stand at the time and date of your registration. When registering an account, creating an account, you pressed/clicked/pushed or otherwise activated the agreement button giving confirmation that you have read all of these terms and conditions and agree to them in their entirety and that you are legally bound under contract to the above mentioned and following terms and conditions. Should you be under the legal age, as set out by law in your country of residence, you agree and confirm that you have asked your parent or legal guardian permission to use our site and they have given you permission to use our site under the terms set out above and below.

You further confirm that you have read and agree to these terms and conditions when you activate your account using the activation link sent to your e-mail address at the time of registration.

By adjusting notification settings by opting-in, ticking the box, in your personal user control panel you are giving permission to receive the notifications specified by you. You opt-in, tick the boxes of your own free will and understand what they mean at the point of saving, submitting, locking in your chosen notification preferences.

Any content submissions made by you on the site are your responsibility and you make the submissions of your own free will. By submitting content to the site you are giving permission for that content to be, but not limited to; saved, displayed, shared, viewed, moderated, commented on, indexed, searchable.

You agree for all your content submission to be stored securely in the site database and, with the exception of your personal, private, confidential information, your content submissions may be, but not limited to being; used, retained, shared by the site owners, users, administrators, bots, moderators, search engines and for promotional and informational purposes.

What's the 'right to be forgotten'?
Under various laws, legislation and the GDPR you have the right to request that ALL your personal data be deleted from the site. You can make such a request by contacting the site administrator at any time.

When your request to be forgotten and have your data deleted is received, processed and verified, your personal account and all associated information, including, but not limited to; your E-mail address, Username, Private messages will be deleted from our database permanently without the possibility of recovery.

All none personal, private, confidential information such as, but not limited to; posts, topics, chat, social updates, will be retained by the site. All of your content submissions including, but limited to; posts, topics, chat, social updates will be anonymized so they cannot be traced back to you.

What if we suffer a data breach?
We, us, the site will always store your personal information securely in our database and will make every effort to ensure that it remains secure by, but not limited to; ensuring our database, software, is kept up-to-date, monitored, backed up and encrypted wherever possible. In the event of a data breach we, us, the site will notify you at the earliest opportunity of the breach occurring and what data has been breached, how we are dealing with it and what steps we, us, the site are taking to ensure your data is secure.

In the coming days we will be implementing some new options on the site and you will all be informed of the changes. When you receive our notification and have read our updated policy and t&c's you then have two options. You can agree to these conditions or decline.

What will happen if you disagree?
You will be presented with two buttons. One agreeing to the changes and one disagreeing with the changes.
If you agree to the changes you don't need to do anything else, continue using the site as you always have.
If you disagree with the changes then your account will be deactivated, deleted and all associated personal data erased.

Keep your eye on the board and your emails for updates shortly.

Thank you for reading this important information.

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